Beginning this year, estate and gift tax returns have new filing locations, according to the instructions for Form 706 and Form 709.

As of June 30, 2019, estate tax returns (Forms 706) filed using the United States Postal Service are to be sent to:

Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Center Kansas City, MO 64999

However, Forms 706 filed using an approved private delivery service are to be sent to:

Internal Revenue Service 333 W. Pershing Road Kansas City, MO 64108

The same filing addresses also already apply to gift tax returns (Forms 709), effective as of January 1, 2019.

The 7520 rate for January 2019 has decreased to 3.4%.

The January 2019 Applicable Federal Interest Rates can be found here.

With the end of the year approaching, we thought now would be a good time to re-post and update our annual blog entry on gifting.

For 2019, the annual exclusion gift amount will remain the same as 2018’s at $15,000, but the lifetime gift and estate tax exemption will increase to $11,400,000 (up from 2018’s $11,180,000, which doubled under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act).

With eleven days left in the year, many people are still planning how to make 2018 gifts, whether by making “annual exclusion” gifts of $15,000 per beneficiary, or by taking advantage of the 2018 gift tax exemption amount of $11,180,000.  Whatever the reason for the last-minute gifting, as the end of the year approaches, people may be tempted to make a “quick and easy” gift to their beneficiaries by simply writing a check. As the year draws to a close, however, if your gift is dependent

The 7520 rate for December 2018 remains the same at 3.6%.

The December 2018 Applicable Federal Interest Rates can be found here.

Congratulations to Private Client attorneys, Shannon Barks (Kansas City) and Tiffany McKenzie (Atlanta) who have been elected to partnership at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, effective Jan. 1, 2019!

Congratulations to BCLP associate, Elizabeth Schlesinger, on her election to serve as co-chair of the national Human Rights Campaign Board of Governors!

Reposted from our charity law blog.

The IRS has launched an easy-to-use webpage, IRS.gov/taxreform, with information about how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects your taxes, with a special section focused on tax exempt entities.

The tax reform page features three areas designed specifically for:

• Individuals – For example, standard deduction increase, child tax credit, withholding. Use the Withholding Calculator to make sure you’re withholding enough tax from your paycheck.
• Businesses – For example, depreciation, expenses and qualified business income deductions.
• Tax Exempt Entities – For example, tax reform affecting retirement plans, tax-exempt organizations and governments.

Under the Tax Exempt Entities tab, you’ll find highlights of how tax reform affects retirement plans, tax-exempt organizations and tax-advantaged bonds.

Retirement plans

• Rollovers of retirement plan loan offsets – If your plan offsets an outstanding loan balance when you leave employment, you have
  

The 7520 rate for November 2018 has increased to 3.6%.

The November 2018 Applicable Federal Interest Rates can be found here.

The 7520 rate for September 2018 will remain at 3.4%.

The October 2018 Applicable Federal Interest Rates can be found here.

Andrew Bleyer and Lana Lane, associates in the Private Client Group, St. Louis, Missouri, have been accepted into the inaugural class of the Heart of America Fellows Institute of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC).  The Heart of America Fellows Institute was created by ACTEC Fellows to develop the profession’s future leaders in trust and estate law through a series of in-depth educational presentations led by outstanding subject matter experts in each filed from across the U.S.  The institute includes six sessions for lawyers who were nominated by an ACTEC Fellow and selected through a competitive application process.  The program begins in November 2018 and concludes in May 2019.